Notes from a writing workshop

February 4, 2015

Not so much a writing workshop so far, but rather, a listening to other people talk about other people’s work… shop. Horrifying. Maybe I should try an online writing group… thing. I just don’t care about anyone’s opinions though. Maybe it’s time to go home, bury myself in Tumblr and blankets and write Holmescest.

There’s a man with a nasal-ey voice who has taken half the speaking time. Another man who shuffles his papers. A woman obsessed with getting published, insistent on reading one of her original poems to us. A black woman named “Edisa” who hasn’t learned about her indoor voice yet. And who is a little too fond of bright pink (she’s wearing 3 slightly different shades of it in her outfit). She commanded me to shut the door, but ignored me when I asked why.

The second man, loud shuffler. He’s chewing gum in an almost obscene way. He doesn’t seem to have top teeth so his jaw goes further into his head than it should. Up up up, whoa. His jaw crushed halfway into his face.

The obsessed-with-getting-published lady has left. Because she isn’t going to get to read her poetry out loud. She gathered her handful of short library pencils, her two grocery bags full of other bags and her grimy Timbuk2 messenger bag and left. She had fuzzy pilling on the back of her camel colored probably Old Navy peacoat. It made me determined to keep my coats well-shaven.

Black lady talking again. Sharing about herself: “I love to laugh, but it has to be funny.” I know more about her than I care to. She doesn’t know what “mod” means. She thinks “Pavlov” is a reference to uncontrollable desire, she doesn’t see how a narrator could possibly refer to characters as “the lady” or “the gentleman” unless the setting is Victorian England.

The nasal man writes like a poet but hates poetry.

Highlight of the evening: an Asian man told us that the last time he left the class, a shady stranger told him Market street was blocked because “there’s a suitcase full of body parts.” His was the only story I wanted to hear, and the only one we spent too little time on.